The ‘Queensferry Crossing Arc’, a digital archive, featuring behind the scenes footage, interviews, state of the art 3D animation and pictures telling the story of building the new bridge has gone live today.

“Excitement and interest in the Queensferry Crossing just keeps building as the project nears completion,” said Economy Secretary Keith Brown. “The new bridge is fast becoming Scotland’s newest icon and it is fitting that we now have such a fantastic digital archive available to explain how it was built. The site has used some of the latest methods to capture how the Queensferry Crossing has been built and will provide an important record and learning tool for future generations. It’s like an interactive film and picture album rolled into one

“Not only does the website use incredible 3D animations, based on state of the art 3D scanning undertaken of all three Forth bridges, it also has over an hour of video footage and staff interviews explaining construction. In addition, the site offers the chance for the public to join in by submitting their pictures of the bridge to form part of this important archive. We’ve always said that building a bridge wasn’t the limit to this project, we also need to ensure a learning legacy is forged from the inspirational, iconic Queensferry Crossing. That is the ambition of the Arc.”

The scans are the first product of the Transport Scotland funded project to laser scan the Forth bridges. The cutting-edge work was carried out by the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV), a partnership between the Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation and Historic Environment Scotland.

Alastair Rawlinson, Head of Data Acquisition at The Glasgow School of Art and CDDV, said: “We were presented with a unique opportunity to digitally document the bridge in 3D as it was being constructed. This allowed the team, working in conjunction with engineering experts, to create an incredibly accurate 3D model and animation showing all construction phases. We hope people will enjoy learning about the bridge through visiting the website and watching the animations.”